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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports softball

IU opens up Big Ten Tournament at Ohio State

Members of the IU Softball team celebrate after freshman Mena Fulton hit a 3-run home run during the last inning of IU's game against Purdue Wednesday at the Andy Mohr Field; resulting in a 6-3 win for the hoosiers.

After dropping all three to Ohio State last weekend, the Hoosiers will travel back to Columbus, Ohio to take on the Buckeyes in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.

“With Ohio State it’s like, ‘Okay, you just swept us, but now we can beat you when it really counts and knock you out of the Tournament at your home field,”” junior Kelsey Dotson said. “The opportunity for us to really do something is there. We’ve just got to play well and get it done.”

IU will be the 11-seed, earning the tiebreaker against now No. 12 seed Purdue.

The single elimination tournament is set to kick off Thursday with the Hoosiers playing their game at 5:30 and the Championship will be on Saturday May 11.

"The Tournament is a whole new season," senior outfielder Shannon Cawley said. "Everything that's happened up to this point doesn't matter. We've got a clean slate and now we have a chance to come out and do something pretty special."

This will be the second straight season — the fifth in school history — that the Hoosiers will be participating the Big Ten Tournament, having a 3-6 record all-time.

The Buckeyes dropped their first four conference games of the season, but turned it around to respond with a 12-7 mark in the Big Ten, earning themselves the 6-seed.

Ohio State has had good hitting all around the lineup, with 11 different players batting above .300 and seven players recording at least 40 hits during the 2015 season.

As for IU, it too is having one of their best seasons in history at the plate, setting a school-record with 51 homeruns on the year. The previous record was 41.

Dotson led the way with 14 long balls, just two shy of the school single-season record held by Michelle Venturella. Many followed Dotson, as ten different players went yard for the Hoosiers this season.

The Hoosiers also tallied up more offense than just homeruns. IU sat near the top of many IU softball single-season records, including ranking second in runs (281, record is 328), RBIs (251, record is 278) and walks (189 record is 209). The team also recorded 426 base hits, which was good for seventh on the team’s all-time records for a team in a season.

Freshman Rebecca Blitz had a big impact for the Hoosiers in her inaugural season. She was the only player to start all 55 games for IU and ranked 4th in the Big Ten in batting average for freshman, batting .341.

For the seniors on the team such as Lora Olson, Miranda Tamayo and Brianna Meyer, it’s the last chance for them to help bring a Big Ten Championship with them back to Bloomington.

"We've got to just be who we are," Gardner said. "We have a potent offense when we are playing Indiana softball. We just need to stay within ourselves."

Gardner has preached all year about how the regular season has all been in preparation for the Big Ten Tournament, and now the Hoosiers will look to put that preparation to work as they play against Ohio State for the fourth time in a week on Thursday.

“I think everyone’s in a good place regardless of what happened last weekend,” senior Shannon Cawley said. “everybody’s got their eyes moving forward. It all starts with Ohio State.”

The game can be seen on Big Ten Network and the winner will play 3-seed Nebraska on Friday.

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